| BOZEMAN, Mont. -- Montana's high-tech farmers are looking at their
fields with new "eye in the sky" technology this summer, thanks
to NASA and the MSU TechLink Center.
In its first comprehensive remote sensing evaluation project, producers
in the Precision Agriculture Research Association have been comparing how
different types of aerial images can help them make real-time decisions
determining when and where to apply fertilizers, pesticides and nutrients
to their crops.
Some of PARA's producers even are working on a business plan to
commercialize whichever technology proves to be most cost-effective for
wheat and barley producers in the High Plains. The premise of the plan is
that commercialization would lower system costs and allow many more
farmers to benefit from remote-sensing systems.
Eyes on the fields
"In today's Montana agriculture, one can't hire someone to be in
the field on an entire farm on a weekly basis," says Chuck Merja,
PARA board member from Sun River, Mont. "This technology helps get
eyes on each field each week during the growing season."
Remote sensing is an efficient way to cover all of a farm's acres and
help producers to budget physical visits and inputs for specific areas of
need.
PARA and technical advisers from Montana State University-Bozeman are
evaluating several types of remote sensing imagery for use with their own
computer software. The project is being cost-shared roughly equally by the
members of PARA, by NASA's Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium and by
TechLink.
This past summer, UMAC reported that the NASA remote sensing project
had surveyed some 800 square miles of farmland in Wyoming, South Dakota
and Montana, including sites near Chester, Valier, Conrad, Power, Great
Falls, Sun River, Big Timber and Billings. The images were obtained by
satellite imaging systems aimed at specific growers' fields. Wheat, barley
and forage producers in the Golden Triangle area who own the land that was
surveyed this season were able to view most of their images by the evening
of the flight, thanks to high-speed Internet delivery.
"Getting imagery into growers' hands within a few hours of
acquisition was an important part of the project, because they could then
use the images to make real decisions," says Gary Arnst, the PARA
member from Valier who spearheaded the higher resolution, fast turnaround
imagery.
Convenient monitoring
Montana agricultural producers face many challenges including pressures
to lower costs, increase production and maintain good stewardship
practices on the land. Consequently, as many producers begin to farm more
land and produce larger crops, it becomes increasingly difficult to
monitor their fields and respond to multiple crop needs in a timely
fashion. PARA is hoping to demonstrate that the use of remote sensing
technology will provide fast and convenient monitoring of resources so
producers can exercise best practices for optimal crop management and
productivity. That may be easier with remote sensing, because weeds,
diseases and insects image differently than healthy crops. With the image
to tell a producer that a certain field needs checking, they could make a
quick trip to the field to verify the problem. That verification is called
"ground-truthing" of aerial images.
NASA has played a key role in growing the remote sensing industry in
the United States. PARA members had access to satellite imagery last year
through a UMAC project. Observations from that experience led members on a
quest for better resolution and more frequent images. While most of the
images collected this season were "false color" composites, the
images provided with TechLink funding can be viewed in false color or true
color and can be opened by farmers' GIS software. Vegetative indices,
which are helpful for understanding vegetative health, can be calculated
and viewed using any of the systems flown this past summer.
"These images were very useful in making real time decisions this
summer, but they will also be useful for years to come when they are
compared to future images, yield maps, water holding capacity maps, weed
maps and other information that PARA members collect from their
fields," says Carl Mattson, a Chester producer who is president of
PARA. "We are very thankful for the foresight of university faculty
within UMAC and TechLink for helping us collect and make sense out of the
images we acquired the last two seasons. This has been a great
collaborative effort and will become a good management tool for a lot of
crop and livestock producers."
TechLink is located at Montana State University-Bozeman and funded by
NASA and the Department of Defense to link companies in Montana and the
surrounding region with federal laboratories for joint research and
technology transfer. |